Grin and Bear It
by AMarguerite
Summary: Courfeyrac, Joly and Bahorel attempt to find Combeferre and are exceedingly silly.


"Remind me again why we're here?" asked Bahorel, looking around the menagerie, unimpressed. It was a sunny day, though early enough in the afternoon for the caged animals to be uninterestingly lethargic.

Courfeyrac was busy trying to catch the eye of a pretty nursemaid so Joly said, "We're looking for Combeferre, I might remind you, for… his… er… chemistry notes, you know _volatile _chemistry notes, and he's something of a naturalist. He wasn't at any of his other haunts, so this is as good a guess as any."

Bahorel was not impressed with Joly's reasoning. "Hunh."

"You just don't like looking at animals unless they are attacking each other," Joly said disparagingly. "Why not enjoy our little slice of Eden, where all God's creatures serenely rest within their natural habitats?"

"A menagerie is not a natural habitat," said Bahorel. "It is a chance for one European monarch to subvert traditional gift-giving traditions and drain the treasury of another. The best way for an oppressed Hidoo mah raja to show a little defiance is to fob off an elephant on Charles X."

"I like the elephant," said Courfeyrac, momentarily distracted.

"Actually, I did hear once that the king of Norway didn't like the king of England and so gave him some polar bears," said Joly. "Perhaps the king of Norway thought the polar bears would eat the king of England?"

Courfeyrac nonchalantly leaned against one of the walls separating them from the animals, to show off his profile to the now curious nursery maid. "Well that's an awkward diplomatic incident for you. It's hard to thank someone for a gift that's currently gnawing on your left leg. Whatever happened to the polar bears?"

Joly had been scanning the crowd for Combeferre and turned back, a little distracted. "Hm? I think… London's menagerie is in the Tower of London, which is also a prison, oddly enough, so they just stuck the polar bears in the moat."

"Can you imagine polar bears swimming around the Bastille?" asked Courfeyrac, with a laugh. "It would make July fourteenth even more amazing than it is already."

"I do not see Combeferre," Bahorel announced. "I'm bored."

"Oh look, Bahorel," Courfeyrac said, with exaggerated surprise. "I see something! It's your relatives!" He pointed at an enclosure with several bears. "It looks like they made a family outing of it."

"Why you—" Bahorel launched himself at Courfeyrac.

"You muss my hair again and I punch you in the nose!"

"I'd like to see you try!" Courfeyrac did so, but Bahorel was a trained pugilist and Courfeyrac was a trained fencer. It was not difficult to guess who would win a round of informal fisticuffs and just who would get pinned to the bars of the bear enclosure to have his hair mussed.

"Damn you, Bahorel," Courfeyrac said, looking anxiously at his nursery maid, who had burst out laughing and walked off with her charges. "Now where's my hat?"

Joly and Courfeyrac began searching for it, much to the bemusement of the other people at the bear cage. Courfeyrac was turning red from the snickers- he knew his hair was a mess and he looked a fool, but it was hardly his fault—

Joly hastily disguised a laugh as a cough.

"Oh, not you too," said Courfeyrac. "It's hardly my fault Bahorel's made me look homeless."

"Oh no, not that," Joly said, in a somewhat strangled voice. "I think that, ah, I found your top hat."

"Thank God!" exclaimed Courfeyrac. "Where?"

"In the bear cage."

Courfeyrac dashed back to the fence to see a bear nosing at his top hat. "Hé, _hé_! Bear! Get away from that!"

The bear ignored him and batted at it with one massive paw.

In some desperation, Courfeyrac turned to Bahorel. "You're an ursinine fellow- get it to stop!"

"When it has only just discovered its taste for haberdashery?" Bahorel asked, far too innocently for a man as big and as battle-scarred as he was. "I wouldn't dream of it."

Courfeyrac told him, in grammatically incorrect Provencal, just what Bahorel could do with either his hat or the bear.

"What you lacked in grammar you at least made up in imagination," said Bahorel, "but I don't think you're getting your hat back." He pointed. The bear was now rolling in the dirt, gnawing on the brim of Courfeyrac's hat.

"I suppose you just have to grin and _bear i_t," said Joly.

"The bear can have your hat next," Courfeyrac said, nettled. "Damn it, I liked that hat! Here, hold this." He pulled off his tailcoat and thrust it at Joly.

Courfeyrac managed to climb halfway up the bars when someone cleared their throat very loudly. Courfeyrac smiled charmingly over his shoulder. "Can I help you sir?"

"Yes," said an unamused gendarme. "You can tell me why you are attempting to climb into the bear cage."

"Sir, the bear has stolen my hat," said Courfeyrac.

The man looked from the disheveled Courfeyrac to the bear, rolling in the dirt with Courfeyrac's top hat in evident enjoyment. "Clearly the more civilized being has prevailed."


End file.
